


if i asked you to dance

by pictureperfectporcelain



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dancing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Viktor with a K, Yuri is a Ballerina, side seungchuchu, side viktuuri, supportive friends, they're both smitten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 21:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10422027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pictureperfectporcelain/pseuds/pictureperfectporcelain
Summary: “Yuri, not to alarm you or anything, but Otabek Altin is coming over here and he’s looking straight at you,” said Viktor.Seung-gil scoffed. “There’s nothing straight about them.”***High School AU where Otabek asks Yuri to teach him to dance for a gym project.





	

“Yuri, not to alarm you or anything, but Otabek Altin is coming over here and he’s looking straight at you,” said Viktor.

Seung-gil scoffed. “There’s nothing straight about them.”

Mila silenced him with a withering glare. “Oh, don’t act like you haven’t been stalking Phichit Chulanont on social media for the past month, Mr. Heterosexual.”

“He’s getting closer,” Viktor reminded. His voice had a peculiar edge to it, somehow both excited and terrified at once.

Yuri rolled his eyes. “You act like I give a shit.”

“What if I were to tell you your hair was a mess?”

He started frantically combing his hand through his hair, to Mila and Viktor’s amusement, though he would deny it the next day.

“Our Yurio has got it bad,” said Mila.

“Obviou-”

“Shut up, he’s almost here! Act natural!” Viktor hissed, effectively shutting everyone up. Yuri leaned against his locker, trying his best to look bored, even though every instinct in his body was screaming to run far and fast.

(Because _of_ _course_ he gave a shit. He’d had a thing for Otabek since the sixth grade.)

“... and then I said, _‘Just because we’re Russian doesn’t mean you can put vodka in your cereal!’_ ”

“I beg to differ!” said Georgi. “Remember that time-”

Mila coughed loudly into her fist. “Otabek!” she cried. Yuri internally cringed at her cheerfulness. “Hi! We didn’t see you there!”

“Hi,” Otabek said, in that deep, rumbly voice of his.

Honestly. It wasn’t fair. Nobody should be allowed to say _hi_ (such a simple, girly greeting) and _still_ make Yuri feel like his bones were melting.

“What brings you here, Altin?” Viktor said, adopting Mila’s cheerful attitude.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he said. It took Yuri a second to realize that Otabek was looking at him.

“Me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mila. “We’ll just leave you to it, then! Wouldn’t want to interfere. C’mon, guys!” She grabbed Georgi and Viktor and propelled them all out of the hallway, sending Yuri a gigantic grin once Otabek’s back was turned. Seung-gil followed after them, shaking his head the entire way.

Otabek frowned. (Or was that just his natural facial expression? Yuri couldn’t tell.) “They really didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” he sighed. “They’re not the sharpest tools in the shed.”

Otabek seemed to accept this explanation, because he focused his attention back on Yuri. “I wanted to talk to you about our current unit in physical education.”

“I’m not in your year,” Yuri reminded him. He was a year below Otabek, which was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because he didn’t see him everyday. Otabek did funny things to Yuri. He made his stomach flip when he passed him in the halls, made his knees go weak when he smiled (which wasn’t often, thankfully). He wouldn’t last an entire year of that.

A curse, because he didn’t see him everyday, and some irrational part of him wanted to.

“I know,” Otabek said. “The thing is, we’re doing a dance unit. And I can’t dance. I figured that since you’re a dancer, you could help me.”

(He was so happy that Otabek knew he was a dancer, he could hardly breath. Until now, he had no reason to believe the other boy knew he existed, beyond the times they had exchanged courteous nods in the hallways. It was the stupidest thing in the world, because Yuri was _famous,_ for god’s sakes. His competitions were announced to the school, and his poster were hung up at every theater in town.)

“I know it’s a lot to ask…” he said, mistaking Yuri’s silence as hesitance.

Yuri was _not_ hesitant.

“No problem,” he said, surprised and delighted at how casual his voice sounded. “I’ll help you.”

“You will?” Otabek looked surprised.

“Yeah. I’m a prima ballerina, for god’s sakes, how hard can a high school gym unit be?”

“That’s what I thought, but I didn’t want to assume.” He smiled. It was a small smile, all lip, no teeth, but Yuri still felt his stomach drop. It was made all the worse by the fact that he was smiling at _Yuri._ It wasn’t for anyone else, or one of his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quirks of the lip that happened in the library when he was reading sometimes.

(Not that Yuri spied on him at the library. That would be insane. And creepy.)

***

There were many bad things to be said about Viktor’s boyfriend, aka Yuuri Katsuki, but it could not be said that he wasn’t perceptive.

(Or at least, he was towards _other_ people. When he and Viktor had started hanging out, it took him an unbelievably long time to see that Viktor liked him.)

Yuri was starting to hate it.

“Where are you going?” asked the Japanese student as Yuri tried to shove around him to the door.

“None of your business,” he replied. Yuuri remained firmly in front of the exit.

Viktor walked in and put his arms around Katsuki’s waist. “Leave him alone, Yuuri! He’s just going to Mila’s house.”

“No he’s not,” said Yuuri, settling back into Viktor’s arms. “No way is he all dressed up for _Mila._ ”

“I’m not dressed up!” argued Yuri.

But he was, in a sense. He wasn’t wearing anything fancy - he wouldn’t be caught dead - but he had put product in his hair to make it shiny, and braided a portion of it back so that his face was showing. He was also wearing his favourite leopard-print jacket, and his best pair of skinny jeans.

“You’re wearing _eyeliner,_ ” Katsuki pointed out.

Viktor squinted at Yuri’s face. “Hey, you’re right! But you can hardly see it.”

“That’s the point, Vitya,” said Yuuri patiently. “He wants it to look natural."

“Shit, is it really obvious?” Yuri bolted to the window to check his reflection. “Fuck _,_ I tried to get it as thin as possible-”

“It looks fine,” Yuuri assured him, still in Viktor’s arms. “He won’t even notice.”

This time, when Yuri tried to push Yuuri out of the way, the Japanese man moved without resistance. As he slammed the door shut, he could faintly hear Viktor saying, _“Who are you talking about?!”_

Sometimes he wondered why Katsuki was so gone on Viktor. He was smart enough to do better.

***

Yuri showed up at the dance studio with two donuts, and nearly lost his shit when Otabek showed up with two coffees.

(He didn’t believe in soulmates, but wasn’t that very soulmate-y thing to do?)

Otabek looked far too good for an afternoon of learning how to dance for PE. He wore the same exact thing to school everyday; a black, ASOS muscle tee, faded black jeans, a leather jacket, a grey scarf, and fingerless gloves. (Not that Yuri was keeping track or anything.) So it was a shock to poor Yuri’s brain when he strode in wearing a tight black shirt with the Harley Davidson logo on it, without the jacket to obscure his arms and chest.

 _Good god,_ he thought. _It should be legally required to sign a wager before seeing him up close._

“Thanks for meeting me here,” Otabek said with a tight, nervous smile.

“It’s not a problem. Thanks for the coffee.”

“Thanks for the donut.”

“We could do this all day, Altin,” said Yuri, which coaxed another smile out of the other boy. “So, a dance unit. Who’s your gym teacher?”

“Mr. Papah.”

Yuri frowned. “That’s unusual. Most gym teachers don’t think of dance as a real sport.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s obviously bullshit. I’m a dancer, and I could totally bench Mr. Papah.”

Otabek cracked another lethal, lippy smile.

“This is the first year we have it, and it’s only my class. I think it’s to, um, diversify.”

“What kind of dance do you need to learn?”

Otabek shrugged. “He didn’t specify. We get a lot of freedom on this project. The only thing we need to do is create an original dance routine and submit it in video form.”

“Then what style did you want to do? I’m obviously a ballet guy, but that’s probably not your best bet,” he said, taking in Otabek’s solid, muscular frame.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “I don’t know… maybe hip-hop? I don’t know if that’s something you can teach me.”

Yuri snorted. “Please. I can do hip-hop. Who’s been telling you that I can’t do hip-hop? I’ll fight them.”

They got to work googling hip-hop moves, both of them hunched over Yuri’s phone.

Yuri took a sip of his coffee when he finally deemed it cool enough to drink. He swallowed it down and turned to Otabek with his eyebrows raised. There was the perfect amount of sugar and milk. (Viktor said he was a disgrace, because, contrary to popular belief, Yuri liked to put a _lot_ of sugar in his coffee.)

“This is perfect. How do you know what I put in my coffee?”

To Yuri’s delight, Otabek blushed and looked down at his own cup. “Lucky guess,” he mumbled. And maybe Yuri was just over analyzing it, but to him, it seemed like more than that.

***

Over the course of the next week, they practiced everyday. Yuri had taken to watching hip-hop tutorials in his (very limited) free time, since he didn’t _actually_ know as much about hip-hop as he had pretended.

To his surprise, Otabek was a fast learner. While true that he wasn’t the best dancer, he was unusually eager to please, and always practiced at home like Yuri told him to.

“You really want to do well on this project, huh?” Yuri said casually one day, while teaching Otabek how to do the Wop.

Otabek did a spin-out and landed hard on both feet before restarting the routine. One thing he was good at was naturally portraying aggression, which worked with the style of dance.

(Although Yuri was quickly learning that Otabek wasn’t aggressive in the slightest. He liked that about him.)

“It would be hard not to do well,” he replied between labored breaths. “My teacher is pretty cool.”

Yuri pressed his fingers against his mouth to stop himself from grinning.

***

Then, two days after that, Mr. Papah dress-coded him for wearing leggings in the hall.

Which was ridiculous, because Yuri had ballet practice after this, and he couldn’t exactly show up in jeans, could he? He said this to Mr. Papah, but the man didn’t seem to care.

“C’mon, shouldn’t you be encouraging this?” he asked, half-jokingly.

The 6’4 man gave him an incredulous look.

“You know… because of the dance unit with your seniors?”

To his shock, there was no recognition in Mr. Papah’s lethal gaze. “Plisetsky, I don’t know what you’re on about. My seniors are currently doing volleyball.”

Yuri accepted his dress-code slip and walked away, stunned.

The first thing he did was find Mila, who looked just as confused as he was after she heard his news. They puzzled over this together until Seung-gil happened along.

“It’s obvious that he just wanted an excuse to talk to you,” said Seung-gil with a roll of his eyes.

Mila clapped her hands. “ _Yes!_ I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t I see that before?”

But Yuri was not convinced. Otabek had been working so hard - and Yuri hadn’t even threatened him _once._

“Jesus, Yuri. It’s common knowledge that he has a thing for you.”

“ _WHAT?!”_ Mila and Yuri both shouted.

Seung-gil had the nerve to look confused. “At least… it is in the senior class? He’s literally _always_ in the weight room while you’re at ballet. It’s not coincidence those rooms are right next to each other. And whenever you’re at a competition, he always wears those support stickers they sell at the office.”

“He _does_!?”

“Oh my God. Just ask anyone,” sighed Seung-gil. He looked around for fellow seniors. “Chulanont! Get over here, please.”

Phichit, the sunny senior who Mila suspected Seung-gil had a crush on, came running over. ( _Like an overexcited puppy,_ thought Yuri.) “Hi, Seung-gil!”

“Tell him that Otabek Altin likes him,” he said, gesturing at a shocked and red-faced Yuri.

Phichit beamed. “It’s _so_ cute and _so_ obvious. Remember that time in French when the teacher said dancing and gymnastics weren’t _‘real sports’_ and he fought her for the entire period?”

“Oh, yeah. That happened.”

Suddenly, Mila wrapped her hands around Seung-gil’s neck and shook him. _Hard._

“I can’t believe you’ve been listening to Yuri _obsess_ over him for _years-_ ”

“I don’t _obsess!”_

“-and you’re just now telling us this!?”

Phichit looked delighted, however. “You like him? Ohmygod, I feel like I’m in a fairy tale.”

“Fuck off,” said Yuri. “Mila, strangle him harder.”

Seung-gil had turned a satisfying shade of purple by the time he managed to pry Mila’s finger from around his neck. She was surprisingly strong for her size.

“I thought it was common knowledge!” said Seung-gil.

“Well, if it were common knowledge, I would have talked to him sooner!” said Yuri, angrily. “Now it’s going to have to wait until after school.”

He stomped away, face red and heart _pounding._ Never had he been so elated in his life.

Even the screams from behind him, ranging from Mila wishing him luck to Phichit yelling, “ _YES, BOY, GET THAT DICK!”_ could do nothing to worsen his mood.

***

Two hours later, in the Plisetsky household, there was a vaguely Yuri-shaped lump huddled beneath the blankets on his bed. The only sound in the apartment was the constant knocking on the door - undoubtedly Viktor, here to bother him, or Mila, here to ask him how it went.

“I’M NOT OPENING THE GODDAMNED DOOR, SO JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!” he shouted. The knocking stopped, and the peace was restored.

… until he heard a thump, and an _owwww,_ from inside his room.

Yuri furiously threw off his blanket, only to see Viktor Nikiforov, the ballet legend, sprawled across his bedroom floor.

“We just came to check up- OW, WATCH IT, MILA!” he said as Mila climbed in through the same window that Viktor just did, stepping on him in the process.

“My window was _locked!_ ” exclaimed Yuri.

Phichit Chulanont rolled into the room sporting a huge grin. “Seung-gil wiggled it around until it unlatched. Isn’t he _cool?_ ”

“I’m very cool,” said a voice from the hallway.

“I TOLD YOU TO STOP PICKING MY FUCKING DOOR LOCK,” Yuri shouted. “How many more people should I be expecting?!”

Viktor frowned and closed the window. “Only us.”

“Good to see you can go places without carting around Katsudon like an overgrown puppy.”

“Hey, we’re here to serious talk,” he said. “If you’re going to fight us every step of the way, this is gonna be a hell lot harder.”

Yuri threw himself backwards on the bed, scowling. (Part of him was actually happy to see them, of course, but it was a very small part of him, and it was one that he didn’t care to show.)

“Why didn’t you confront Otabek today, like you said you would?” asked Viktor.

He said nothing.

Mila piped up, “C’mon, Yuri! You just learned that the guy you’ve been lusting after since elementary school turns out to have a crush on you too, and you’re just going to pretend nothing has changed?”

“Nothing _has_ changed, though,” he muttered. “So what? Suppose he likes me even half as much as I like him; he’s bound to be sick of me by the end of the week.”

Viktor raised both eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”

Yuri raised his eyebrows back. “I’m kind of an acquired taste, Viktor. It’s easy to get fed up with me.”

“You _have_ to talk to him!” said Phichit. “I don’t know you very well, and I’m honestly not sure why I was invited to come along with your friends to stage interference, but from what I’ve seen, you both like each other! Besides, I’m sure you’re not that bad that he wouldn’t want to date you.”

He rolled his eyes. Phichit was practically vibrating in anticipation. He hated overeager people… and the word overeager probably had Phichit Chulanont’s picture next to it in the dictionary.

The Thai guy seemed to pick up on his discomfort, because his voice lowered before he asked the next question. “Why didn’t you talk to him like you said you would? You seemed so confident earlier.”

“I don’t know,” Yuri said. “I tried bringing it up and panicked. I ended up telling him that his floor-spins were sloppy. His feelings were probably hurt. I’m a wreck.”

“You are,” said Seung-gil.

“Well, what’s _your_ advice to him?” demanded Mila.

Seung-gil appeared to be examining him. His friend’s pitch-black eyes were fixed on his face with alarming intensity, and Yuri was hit with the sudden thought that Seung-gil and Otabek would get along.

“It’s not my call to make,” he said finally. “The only thing that I can say is that _acquired taste_ doesn’t mean that nobody will ever like you… after all, you have a room full of friends who broke into your house to talk to you.”

They left soon after that, when everyone was done exchanging goodbyes and they had trooped back out the window, despite Yuri’s protests to just use the door. Although he would never admit it, their advice had hardened his resolve. He was going to do it tomorrow. He was going to stop being a coward and just talk to Otabek.

(Somehow, Seung-gil’s was the most helpful advice of them all.)

***

 _Oh shit,_ thought Yuri. _My time is running out._

The clock read 4:02 PM, meaning Otabek would soon call it quits and head home, and Yuri would have to wait another day to bring up his discovery. He wasn’t sure if he could take another day of nervous anticipation, of his heart nearly thumping out of his chest when the dismissal bell rang.

Then again, this was partly his own fault. He had been putting it off for an hour, opting to just watch Otabek’s routine, occasionally pointing out a flaw or making a suggestion, all the while thinking, _Why are you doing this, Otabek? Why work so hard for a lie?_

“I should probably go,” said Otabek, right on cue, as the clock struck 4:10.

Yuri nodded. “Me too.”

He was usually out the door long before Otabek was; the older boy had to change out of his dance clothes, while Yuri just had to grab his bag and leave. However, he made sure to pack his bag extra slowly today (emptying it and re-packing it twice) while waiting for Otabek.

In a rare turn of events, they left the school together, and fell into an easy chatter that was mostly just Yuri talking and Otabek occasionally inserting something into the conversation (not that Yuri minded). They both stopped a pace away from his motorcycle.

“So…” said Otabek. His hands were jammed in his pockets, and he suddenly looked nervous. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Yuri gave him an assessing look before speaking. “You’re awfully devoted to this project, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“After all, I haven’t been helping you all that much. It’s almost as if you don’t need me. How polished does this dance have to be, anyway?”

Otabek dragged his bottom lip under his teeth.

( _Damn,_ thought Yuri.)

“I’m not sure,” he admitted.

“Well, it’s definitely going to be polished at the rate you’re going,” said Yuri. “Especially considering you’re not even doing a dance unit.”

Before these last two weeks, Yuri would never have noticed the way Otabek’s eyes widened slightly, or the nervous bob of his throat. But these past two weeks had changed _everything_.

“Um. True,” said Otabek.

Yuri laughed. “Seriously? _True?_ ”

“What else am I supposed to say? What you said is _correct._ ”

“You’re impossible,” teased Yuri. “Here I am trying to confront you about this and all you say is that what I’m _correct._ ”

The older boy scuffed his shoe against the ground. He peered at Yuri through the messy, sweaty strands of black hair that fell in front of his eyes. “So I suppose this means you’ve figured me and my… feelings… out?”

“ _I_ didn’t,” he admitted. “My friend Seung-gil had to tell me and Mila.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Mila was pissed. She tried to strangle him.”

“... Why?”

Yuri scoffed. “Because she’s a filthy gossip and wants to be the first to know about everything. She was like, _“I can’t believe you’ve listened to Yuri obsess over him for years and are just now telling us this!”_ She thinks that everyone’s business is her own.”

Before these last two weeks, he wouldn’t have noticed the way Otabek’s jaw dropped.

“What did I say?” he demanded. “You’re looking at me like I just told you I’m actually a stripper named Blueberry.”

“Repeat what you just said,” Otabek said.

“I’m actually a stripper named-”

“The other thing.”

Yuri huffed, but he did what was asked of him. He still didn’t understand, until it dawned on him the meaning behind what he had said. Or, more accurately, what _Mila_ had said, but what he had quoted back at Otabek.

“... Shit.”

Otabek smiled at him, and it wasn’t one of those lippy smiles that only hinted at his white teeth. It was a full-on grin, one that pushed his cheeks higher on his face and made his eyes crinkle. Yuri’s breathe caught in his throat. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember why he had been so nervous about talking to Otabek. Not if _this_ was what he got for it.

“Nah,” he said. “Nothing about this is shit.”

***

Mila honest-to-god _screamed_ when Yuri hopped off the back of Otabek’s motorcycle with his book bag the next day. After talking about it a bit more last night, they had argued over who was going to take who on a date, which had resulted in Otabek insisting that they went to a restaurant _that very instant._ He had also picked Yuri up for school, as he had promised when they parted ways.

She screamed even louder when Otabek got off the bike with him and wrapped an arm around Yuri’s shoulders.

And she outright _shrieked_ when Yuri pulled him into a kiss by the collar of his leather jacket. She kept shrieking until they stopped kissing.

(The students of Ice Castle High had two things to wonder about that day. They wondered how Otabek Altin and Yuri Plisetsky _finally got their shit together, seriously, the intensity of their pining could have fueled nuclear weapons, oh my god._ )

(They also wondered why Mila Babicheva had mysteriously lost her voice.)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> so i'm supposed to be being productive???but instead i write almost 4000 words of shitty high school au. anyway, hope _you_ like it, because i have no idea how i feel about this. I feel like this is not my best work (or maybe i'm just garbage??), but then again, i'm not a very good judge of my own shit, so... your thoughts would be super helpful. 
> 
> PLEASE LEAVE ME COMMENTS AND HMU AT MY [YOI TUMBLR!!!](https://yuri-on-ice-ice-babyyyy.tumblr.com/)


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